On efficient use of auxiliary information for control charting in SPC

In Statistical Process Control (SPC), monitoring of the process dispersion has a major impact on the performance of processes like manufacturing, management and services. Control charts act as the most important SPC tool, used to differentiate between common and special cause variations in the process. The use of auxiliary information can enhance the detection ability of control charts and hence an efficient monitoring of process parameter(s) can be done. This study deals with the Shewhart type variability control charts based on auxiliary characteristics for the non-cascading processes, assuming stability of auxiliary parameters. The control chart structures of these variability charts are provided and their performance evaluations are carried out in terms of average run length (ARL), relative average run length (RARL) and extra quadratic loss (EQL) under the normal and t distributed process environments. The comparisons have been made among different variability charts and superiorities are established based on their detection abilities for different amounts of shifts in process dispersion. An illustrative example is also provided in support of the theory, and finally the study ends with concluding remarks and suggestions for future research.